Can the Democrats embrace Abundance?

or will their existing ideological assumptions trump the Abundance agenda?

---

I recently finished reading “Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and thought I would write a brief review. Since I started writing books and Substack in 2020, I have had very little time to read entire books. Since this book got a fair amount of publicity and it was close to my field of Progress Studies, I decided to take the time to read it anyway.

For anyone familiar with Progress Studies, this book hardly blazes new trails. In many ways, it is a plea to fellow Democrats to focus on enabling the government to build rather than focus on constraining government with regulations and unnecessary process. This book is part of a trend among well-known Center-Leftists, including Noah Smith and Matthew Igesias, who want the Democratic party to moderate on “Woke” issues and get back to making the government work and promoting economic growth.

I wish them luck in this endeavor.

A few quotes from the book

Rather than paraphrase the authors, I will summarize their argument with their own quotes (all bold text is added by me):

“This book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need. That’s it. That’s the thesis.

It reads, even to us, as too simple. And yet, the story of America in the twenty-first century is the story of chosen scarcities. Recognizing that these scarcities are chosen—that we could choose otherwise—is thrilling. Confronting the reasons we choose otherwise is maddening.”

“Over the course of the twentieth century, America developed a right that fought the government and a left that hobbled it. Debates over the size of government obscured the diminishing capacity of government. An abundance of consumer goods distracted us from a scarcity of homes and energy and infrastructure and scientific breakthroughs. A counterforce is emerging, but it is young yet.”

““The words “supply side” are coded as right-wing… “the conservative agenda did something else, too: it cast production as a function of unfettered markets… while Democrats focused on giving consumers money to buy what they needed, they paid less attention to the supply of the goods and services they wanted everyone to have… “The problem is that if you subsidize demand for something that is scarce, you’ll raise prices or force rationing. Too much money chasing too few homes means windfall profits for homeowners and an affordability crisis for buyers. Too much money chasing too few doctors means long wait times or pricey appointments… But giving people a subsidy for a good whose supply is choked is like building a ladder to try to reach an elevator that is racing ever upward.”

“A new theory of supply is emerging—and with it, a new way of thinking about politics, economics, and growth.”

“There is a word that describes the future we want: abundance. We imagine a future not of less but of more. We do not subscribe to the seductive ideologies of scarcity… “Abundance, as we define it, is a state. It is the state in which there is enough of what we need to create lives better than what we have had. And so we are focused on the building blocks of the future. Housing. Transportation. Energy. Health.”

Key policy domains

The bulk of the book focuses on a few key policy domains that the authors believe are key to creating Abundance. The policy domains are:

• housing

• energy/climate, particularly Green energy

• health care, particularly biomedical research

• transportation, particularly highs-speed rail and mass transit

The authors consistently argue that:

• Democratic policies since the 1960s unintentionally choked off the capacity of the government to build things (housing, energy, transportation, etc)

• A new generation of Democrats must rebuild government capacity by cutting back on an excessively complicated process so the government can start building again.

A very narrow audience

One of the key problems that I have with this book is that it is clearly targeted at a very narrow partisan audience: Center-Left college-educated Democrats. I seriously doubt that there is much in this book that would convince Leftist activists, Conservatives, Moderates, or the working class.

Because of the above, there are sentences scattered throughout the book that seem to say: “Don’t worry. I am not one of those scary MAGA types. I am one of us… no, really” And the obligatory criticism of Trump about issues that have nothing to do with Abundance.

There is certainly no attempt to build bridges with those who are not already partisan Democrats. This is too bad as I think that the argument for making long-term economic growth the #1 of government policy is one that can create a broad political coalition and win voters in both parties.

I strongly believe that the Progress Studies movement of which I am a part must be:

• Be openly political, because so many of the factors undermining Abundance are due to government policy. You cannot change government policy without getting involved in politics.

• Non-partisan (because neither party fully endorses our goals)

• Willing to work within both major parties and minor parties

• But willing to endorse specific issue stands, candidates, and parties who support (and more importantly actually implement) a large portion of our agenda. So while we must be non-partisan now, we should be willing to fully endorse either Democrats or Republicans depending upon which party gives us the most. In other words, our loyalties are transactional until one of the parties is very clearly better than the other on our key issues.

The problem that I have with the Center-Left Abundance types is that they are already so closely identified with the Democratic party that they will continue to endorse the Democrats even if:

• The Democrats continue their Anti-Abundance policies.

• The Republicans fully embrace policies that create long-term economic growth.

I have the sense that even though they claim to believe in Abundance, their revealed preferences show that they care more about climate change, cultural issues, redistributive social programs, and partisan loyalty. I hope that I am incorrect on that, but I don’t think that any of them would ever jump to the Republican party regardless of the policy stands of the two parties on Abundance issues.

So what leverage do they really have over the Democratic party if the Abundance movement will support them regardless?

No theory of Abundance

A key problem with this book is that the authors present no theory as to where Abundance actually comes from. The implicit assumption is that Abundance comes from the government building things. Given that they are trying to persuade Democratic activists and voters, this is understandable, but if the goal is really to create Abundance, this is a major oversight.

The authors implicitly start with the assumption that Abundance comes from the government building things. It is not even clear that they believe that assumption in all sectors of the economy. For example, they do not endorse government construction of housing. They assume that significant cutbacks of zoning rules will enable the private sector to build houses, but they also reject the claims that their agenda is Republican-style deregulation in other sectors (which would horrify their audience).

On the one hand, I understand why the authors did not take on the key question of causality. It is not a simple question to answer. I have spent the last ten years trying to answer this question. In the end, I came up with the Five Keys to Progress and How Progress Works as my theory for how a society transforms from a state of enduring poverty to a state of progress (long-term economic growth).

While it is clear that government policy plays a role in creating Abundance, it is at best a supporting role. Abundance comes from society, not from the government, and throughout human history, the government typically has constrained the ability of society to create Abundance. And the ideological Left in particular has implemented policies that intentionally and unintentionally undermine Abundance.

The most likely answer for why they did not try to answer this question is that it is not of interest to the target audience. The real goal of the authors is not to create Abundance but to convince fellow Democrats that it is a worthy goal, worthy enough to question some of their key ideological assumptions. Unfortunately, the authors are only willing to push their audience to question a few of the key impeding assumptions.

But the key assumption on the Left that government is the key agent of progress goes untouched. This leaves a huge hole in their argument.

Why not try deregulation first?

“Abundance is liberalism, yes. But more than that, it is a liberalism that builds.”

In the authors’ mind, the goal of Abundance is firmly attached to ideological liberalism. This is far from clear, and the authors never explain this connection.

The authors do not fully explain why they are so confident that typical Republican-style deregulation will not at least help create Abundance (and by “Republican-style,” I mean what Republicans say, not what they actually do when they achieve power).

The authors clearly acknowledge the importance of deregulation of the housing market to enable private builders to build more homes. That is great, and I fully support them. But why can this logic not be applied to other sectors of the economy?

• Why not deregulate the fossil fuel and nuclear industry (and stop subsidizing and mandating Green energy)?

• Why not deregulate the healthcare industry, which might be the most heavily regulated industry in American society, to enable abundant healthcare for all?

• Why not deregulate the agricultural industry to enable abundant food for all?

• Why not deregulate the education industry to enable abundant schooling for all?

• Why not deregulate the transportation industry to enable abundant mobility for all?

Remember all the above will require virtually no additional funding or taxation.

We already know from the example of Idaho that massive deregulation can be done very quickly by the executive and then ratified by the legislature. It is hard to imagine Republicans not being willing to cooperate in this endeavor. A bipartisan campaign to massively deregulate the above sectors of the economy could have very positive effects on Abundance and far less political resistance than the government building things.

And the goal of deregulating the private sector aligns nicely with increasing the capacity of the government. As the authors show, it is largely government regulations that are constraining government capacity. So we can simultaneously deregulate the public sector and the private sector.

Why not be supply-side for both the public and private sector?

I think that the answer is obvious: “deregulation” conflicts with the ideology of the Democratic party. The Left views the government as the prime source of agency, and the term “deregulation” is too right-coded for their audience to pallet.

You must choose between Abundance and Green energy transition

In chapter two “Build” the authors seem completely oblivious to the contradictory goals of:

• Abundance

• Solving climate change

“This book is motivated in no small part by our belief that we need to decarbonize the global economy to head off the threat of climate change.”)

“To decarbonize, they all will need to run on electricity.

The energy analysts Sam Calisch and Saul Griffith estimate that in the next few years consumers will need to replace about one billion machines with clean alternatives. That means when old cars give out, they will be replaced by electric vehicles. It means when old furnaces cough their last breath, they are replaced by heat pumps. It means trading gas stoves for induction stoves and clothes dryers that run on natural gas for dryers that work off heat pumps.

Producing all these new machines is itself a steep manufacturing challenge. It is also a persuasion challenge… Because these advantages are not universally known—and because new technologies are more expensive than mature ones—subsidies need to be generous, and advertising needs to be everywhere…

“The first task is to convert that 60 percent of energy coming from fossil fuels to something closer to 0 percent—or at least 0 percent coming from energy that releases carbon emissions into the atmosphere, which could leave a role for natural gas with carbon capture…

The climate crisis demands something different. It demands a liberalism that builds.”

Note: the percentage of energy coming from fossil fuels is actually around 80% and has hovered there for the last 60 years despite spending trillions of dollars to lower that number.

This is a pretty stunning set of quotes when it comes after the quotes that I listed above. No attempt is made to balance between the two goals of Abundance and solving climate change. They are maximalists on these two contradictory goals.

I cannot say that I am surprised by this contradiction. This contradiction has been central to Center-Left ideology since the climate agenda became popular in the 1990s. They try to bridge this gap by claiming that “wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels” and “batteries are getting cheaper.”

In reality, the Center-Left has become boosters for one sector of the energy economy, while creating government-sponsored scarcity in the sectors (fossil fuels, hydro, and nuclear) which deliver well over 90% of the world’s energy. But keeping the existing energy infrastructure going is far more likely to create energy abundance that enables Abundance in all other sectors of the economy. The authors can only justify this by introducing a secondary goal (fighting climate change) without acknowledging that they actually view it as more important than the primary goal of the book: Abundance.

Pretending that there is no contradiction between these two massive goals makes it virtually impossible for the Abundance movement to implement their vision. Widespread and increasing use of fossil fuels has been, is, and will be essential to material Abundance for the foreseeable future. According to estimates of their own supporters, it will cost $6-8 trillion on Green Energy per year globally to avert a climate crisis. This is roughly 7x (!) what the world is currently spending on fossil fuels (while creating well under 10% of the total amount of energy derived from fossil).

The reality is that solar, wind, and electric vehicles still have massive limitations which will require massive government subsidies and mandates for decades to come. Where is the revenue for Abundance in housing, housing, health care, and education supposed to come from if we spend that kind of money on overhauling the energy sector?

If the authors were forced to choose between these two goals, which would they pick? Their own writing suggests that they would choose to fight climate change through government subsidies and mandates in favor of the Green Energy Transition (but I might be wrong).

I believe that rejecting the government-forced Green Energy Transition is key to enabling future Abundance. The authors never explain why I am wrong.

Vague on policy agenda

“It is easy to unfurl a policy wish list. But what is ultimately at stake here are our values… What we are proposing is less a set of policy solutions than a new set of questions around which our politics should revolve. What is scarce that should be abundant? What is difficult to build that should be easy? What inventions do we need that we do not yet have?”

“Abundance reorients politics around a fresh provocation: Can we solve our problems with supply?

Another problem that I have with the book is that the authors present no substantive policy agenda beyond a few vague statements. They specifically call this out as a means to shorten the book, and that is a reasonable argument. My guess is that a detailed policy proposal would have bored many readers and angered others.

It is not at all clear those the policy agenda that they have in mind is anywhere near radical enough to unleash the Abundance that they foresee in the introductory chapters. The reality is that a set of policy reforms that would create an Abundance that greatly surpasses what we have now will require the Center-Left to confront many of their mistaken policy assumptions.

These ideological assumptions include:

• Equality, particularly race and gender equality, is the prime moral goal.

• The government is the primary agent for creating Abundance (and Equality).

• Increasing the power of the federal government, and particularly the federal bureaucracy, is key to achieving those goals.

• Redistribution (which receives the lion's share of government spending) is more important than Abundance (which receives very little government spending) and a refusal to acknowledge how much these redistributionist policies undermine the ability of the poor and working class to enjoy the benefits of Abundance.

• The Green Energy Transition is necessary to save the planet, and more expensive energy enables that transition.

• Government-forced density is more important than affordable housing.

• Mass transit is more important than automobiles.

• An unwillingness to confront the extent to which affirmative action and DEI undermine the functioning of our institutions.

I could go on and on, but if one looks carefully at every constraint on the government's capacity to build things, one will find Left-of-Center moral assumptions that conflict justify those restrictions. The authors only identified a fraction of their scope, and at least in the field of energy, the authors often endorse those restrictions.

Until the Center-Left fundamentally confronts and rejects those assumptions, there will probably never be an Abundance agenda of the Left with widespread support within the Democratic party. And given how much activists of the Left dominate the party primaries of Blue states and districts, any Democrat that puts Abundance over all other issues will never even get to the general election.

So while I am glad that the authors wrote this book, I am not sure the Abundance agenda will transform the Democratic party. A less partisan approach that focus on Results first is needed.

In other articles, I have claimed that the Left has hit a dead end and to get out of it, they have to fundamentally rethink their core assumptions. The Abundance book is a start in that direction, but it addresses the ten percent that college-educated Democrats are willing to take on in 2024.

I hope that this “Abundance” book is the beginning of this long, difficult process, but my fear is that it will be the end of it.

For all the above reasons, I was pretty underwhelmed by a book that I really wanted to like…

Ezra Klein

Derek Thompson

Noah Smith

Matthew Yglesias

---

For my own policy agenda on how to implement pro-Abundance policies in the short-term: